AyeDubbleYoo

Football fans always want it both ways. We complain about glory hunters but then we boast about which club has the most fans. None of it means anything.

Also fully agree. But we aren’t rating signings or achievements overall, we’re rating current player.

The 'team consisting entirely of' part of C is the hard bit to agree with, not many non-elite players could meet that definition. Schar is good and even better when the team around him is functioning, but a team consisting entirely of Schars would get relegated.

Getting into Trippier territory again I feel, can start in the PL still but can look a bit shaky if the team around him isn't right. Has also started giving the ball away with some mad passes recently. There was a point not too long ago where I'd argue he was the best CB ever to play for us though, so I'm probably underrating him a bit due to our dodgy form.

He’s very sloppy on short passing sometimes.

FWIW I'm also more excited by unknown forrins.

Villa added like 4 attackers with CL experience just in January

Is this about Trafford though, or the fact he’s English and comes from Burnley? I’ve basically never seen him play, so I don’t really know. But he is pretty highly rated.

Is he a bad fan or something?

The kid is absolutely class and I always knew he would be because I know loads about football.

Even an issue he'd normally play through would probably see him rested before the final.

In terms of points this game is neutral really, almost everyone will lose twice against Liverpool.

I felt like we actually had more good attacks than them in the first half, we just don't have the quality to reliably turn them into chances.

I think this is our biggest issue and speaks to why we're not a consistently good team yet. I guess some players are really stretching themselves to even operate against the top teams (Murphy, Wilson, probably even Willock, Schar and Burn) and maybe that leaks into a lack of conviction and confidence at times.

We've been through this hundreds of times, we didn't know that Gordon was going to be mint and only play left, and we needed goals in the front line. I actually think getting more out of Barnes would really help us, I just don't know how we do it.

I agree, but that's not really a squad, it's one decent (extremely young) player. "Eddie use your squad..." implies he has a lot more options that he's not using.

If we had Isak and we hadn't conceded a soft early goal, the game would've been interesting. Hopefully that will happen for this one.

No chance Longstaff would've given the ball away in a dangerous area

But Miley is literally the only competent midfielder we have who isn't starting every game.

We had one a couple of years ago TBF.

That's a pre-season friendly in South America.

Allows us to get beat a lot more easily though

Yep. I was actually most disappointed in Tonali I think, felt he looked a bit intimidated for the first time ever. Not easy to compete in that midfield mind.

I don't know why Tonali isn't taking any.

We need one midfielder, yep. But it can't be a major restructure, can it? We're set with Bruno and Tonali.